On the importance of initialization and momentum in deep learning

Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 28(3):1139-1147, 2013.

Abstract

Deep and recurrent neural networks (DNNs and RNNs respectively) are powerful models that were considered to be almost impossible to train using stochastic gradient descent with momentum. In this paper, we show that when stochastic gradient descent with momentum uses a well-designed random initialization and a particular type of slowly increasing schedule for the momentum parameter, it can train both DNNs and RNNs (on datasets with long-term dependencies) to levels of performance that were previously achievable only with Hessian-Free optimization. We find that both the initialization and the momentum are crucial since poorly initialized networks cannot be trained with momentum and well-initialized networks perform markedly worse when the momentum is absent or poorly tuned. Our success training these models suggests that previous attempts to train deep and recurrent neural networks from random initializations have likely failed due to poor initialization schemes. Furthermore, carefully tuned momentum methods suffice for dealing with the curvature issues in deep and recurrent network training objectives without the need for sophisticated second-order methods.

Related Material

@InProceedings{pmlr-v28-sutskever13,
title = {On the importance of initialization and momentum in deep learning},
author = {Ilya Sutskever and James Martens and George Dahl and Geoffrey Hinton},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Machine Learning},
pages = {1139--1147},
year = {2013},
editor = {Sanjoy Dasgupta and David McAllester},
volume = {28},
number = {3},
series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research},
address = {Atlanta, Georgia, USA},
month = {17--19 Jun},
publisher = {PMLR},
pdf = {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v28/sutskever13.pdf},
url = {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v28/sutskever13.html},
abstract = {Deep and recurrent neural networks (DNNs and RNNs respectively) are powerful models that were considered to be almost impossible to train using stochastic gradient descent with momentum. In this paper, we show that when stochastic gradient descent with momentum uses a well-designed random initialization and a particular type of slowly increasing schedule for the momentum parameter, it can train both DNNs and RNNs (on datasets with long-term dependencies) to levels of performance that were previously achievable only with Hessian-Free optimization. We find that both the initialization and the momentum are crucial since poorly initialized networks cannot be trained with momentum and well-initialized networks perform markedly worse when the momentum is absent or poorly tuned. Our success training these models suggests that previous attempts to train deep and recurrent neural networks from random initializations have likely failed due to poor initialization schemes. Furthermore, carefully tuned momentum methods suffice for dealing with the curvature issues in deep and recurrent network training objectives without the need for sophisticated second-order methods. }
}

%0 Conference Paper
%T On the importance of initialization and momentum in deep learning
%A Ilya Sutskever
%A James Martens
%A George Dahl
%A Geoffrey Hinton
%B Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Machine Learning
%C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research
%D 2013
%E Sanjoy Dasgupta
%E David McAllester
%F pmlr-v28-sutskever13
%I PMLR
%J Proceedings of Machine Learning Research
%P 1139--1147
%U http://proceedings.mlr.press
%V 28
%N 3
%W PMLR
%X Deep and recurrent neural networks (DNNs and RNNs respectively) are powerful models that were considered to be almost impossible to train using stochastic gradient descent with momentum. In this paper, we show that when stochastic gradient descent with momentum uses a well-designed random initialization and a particular type of slowly increasing schedule for the momentum parameter, it can train both DNNs and RNNs (on datasets with long-term dependencies) to levels of performance that were previously achievable only with Hessian-Free optimization. We find that both the initialization and the momentum are crucial since poorly initialized networks cannot be trained with momentum and well-initialized networks perform markedly worse when the momentum is absent or poorly tuned. Our success training these models suggests that previous attempts to train deep and recurrent neural networks from random initializations have likely failed due to poor initialization schemes. Furthermore, carefully tuned momentum methods suffice for dealing with the curvature issues in deep and recurrent network training objectives without the need for sophisticated second-order methods.

TY - CPAPER
TI - On the importance of initialization and momentum in deep learning
AU - Ilya Sutskever
AU - James Martens
AU - George Dahl
AU - Geoffrey Hinton
BT - Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Machine Learning
PY - 2013/02/13
DA - 2013/02/13
ED - Sanjoy Dasgupta
ED - David McAllester
ID - pmlr-v28-sutskever13
PB - PMLR
SP - 1139
DP - PMLR
EP - 1147
L1 - http://proceedings.mlr.press/v28/sutskever13.pdf
UR - http://proceedings.mlr.press/v28/sutskever13.html
AB - Deep and recurrent neural networks (DNNs and RNNs respectively) are powerful models that were considered to be almost impossible to train using stochastic gradient descent with momentum. In this paper, we show that when stochastic gradient descent with momentum uses a well-designed random initialization and a particular type of slowly increasing schedule for the momentum parameter, it can train both DNNs and RNNs (on datasets with long-term dependencies) to levels of performance that were previously achievable only with Hessian-Free optimization. We find that both the initialization and the momentum are crucial since poorly initialized networks cannot be trained with momentum and well-initialized networks perform markedly worse when the momentum is absent or poorly tuned. Our success training these models suggests that previous attempts to train deep and recurrent neural networks from random initializations have likely failed due to poor initialization schemes. Furthermore, carefully tuned momentum methods suffice for dealing with the curvature issues in deep and recurrent network training objectives without the need for sophisticated second-order methods.
ER -

Sutskever, I., Martens, J., Dahl, G. & Hinton, G.. (2013). On the importance of initialization and momentum in deep learning. Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Machine Learning, in PMLR 28(3):1139-1147